XCOM War Diary: The B-Squad
by thetunafarm
Summary: Even XCOM has to scrape the bottom of the barrel sometimes.


In the bowels of XCOM's mobile air fortress, the Commander stood before four soldiers in pitch black armored uniforms, each of them standing at attention.

"As you all know, the war is not going well," the Commander said in a powerful but somber voice. "A month ago, over forty soldiers filled the barracks of this air fortress. But now, you four are what remains of our battle-ready numbers. You are all that stands between us and total submission to the alien invaders."

The four soldiers looked to one another and nodded their heads.

"Now I haven't commanded any of you before, but I trust your bravery and competence will outweigh our lack of familiarity with one another." The Commander pulled out a digital tablet and loaded the soliders' biographies. "Let's start with our explosives expert, codename Scales."

Scales straightened his back and said "Yes, sir!" He was a tall, stocky man with numerous long, thin scars covering his face.

The Commander approached Scales while he reviewed the solider's service record. "Tell us how you earned that codename, Scales."

"I was attacked by a Viper, sir."

"Oh, must've been caught in battle with one of those man-sized snakes. Mean bastards."

"No, sir. Not a battle."

"No?"

"A few months ago, before the aliens became fully hostile, I was a waiter at a charity event focused on peace between our species. I had always wanted to make love to an alien, so I asked a Viper if it would like to join me in the walk-in cooler for a mating ritual. After it stopped slashing my face with a broken champagne glass, I bid the Viper a good night and went to the hospital."

"And you learned a valuable lesson that day, didn't you, Scales? You learned that you can't trust an alie-"

"I learned that I should not have aspired to fuck a man-sized snake, sir."

The Commander next stood before codename Swinger, a short, intense woman with a buzzed head and a cigarette dangling from her lips.

"There will be no smoking while in uniform. Is that understood, Swinger?"

Swinger shrugged, grabbed the lit cigarette and put it in her pocket. Smoke wafted out of her uniform. The Commander started to rebuke her, but Swinger interrupted, "It's fine, sir. Don't worry about it."

Despite the burning stink coming from Swinger, the Commander moved on. "Next we have Turkey, our combat hacker. If we run into any robotic aliens, you'll be able to shut them down with ease." Turkey was a tall, muscular woman with various gadgets strapped to her uniform.

"Well, Commander," said Turkey, "you'd think they named me Turkey because I like to talk turkey as in I get to the point but actually it's because I was once eating a turkey meat sandwich and some of it got stuck in my rifle and I couldn't fire straight during training and the squad laugh-"

"Enough, enough." The Commander held up a palm to Turkey. The combat hacker only smiled and nodded.

Next, the Commander met eyes with codename Caw-Caw, a lean, hairy fellow with mutton chops.

"You are our sniper…Caw-Caw."

"CAW CAW!" squawked the rest of the squad.

Caw-Caw smiled. "Yes sir, I've got eyes like a three-eyed crow. I'm a great shot."

"I look forward to seeing your results on the battlefield, then," said the Commander.

As the Commander stepped away, Caw-Caw cleared his throat. "Sir, moving in full armor really hinders my aim and combat readiness. I've found that fighting in hot pants improves my performance a great deal. Especially in humid climes."

"We're moving into a hostile zone," said the Commander. "Hot pants won't protect you from enemy flak, Caw-Caw."

"CAW CAW!" cried out the squad, and Caw-Caw cracked a smile.

The Commander got in Caw-Caw's face. "Are you trying to be cute with me, soldier?"

"No sir! I just like how they shout my name."

"Drop and give me thirty!"

Caw-Caw hit the deck and knocked out thirty pushups while everyone waited for him to finish. After he completed number thirty with decent form, Caw-Caw looked up at the Commander and asked "Does this mean I can wear the hot pants?"

The Commander about faced and shouted "All of you! Get prepped for the mission, and no bullshit!"

Only minutes before the mission was to begin, the Commander made a final inspection of his troops.

"All right, let's have a look at…What the hell happened to your uniforms?"

Each soldier's uniform had been painted one of many colors: Bright blue, deep red, bold orange.

"We wanted to express our individuality, Commander," said Turkey.

"Your uniforms were solid black camouflage for the night mission! A military operation isn't the place to showcase your darling individuality! And Scales! Why are you green?"

"Sir," Scales said, "I painted my armor green in order to fit in with my squad mates."

"No, you fool, why is your skin green?"

Scales' face, arms and boots were painted the same bright green as his uniform. "Oh, I forgot to take off the uniform when I stepped into the painting machine, sir. An easy mistake to make."

The rest of the squad murmured in agreement.

"It's a confusing machine, sir," said Turkey.

The Commander deployed the squad in a forest a mile away from the target location. The Commander also sent a video drone to follow the squad onto the field, providing XCOM with a ground-level view of the battlefield. Seconds after ordering the squad to activate their Battle Computers, the Commander and his staff panicked at the sight of several small red lights floating near the squad.

"Squad," said the Commander, "be advised of several strange glowing lights very close to your position."

"No worries, sir, we're just smoking cigarettes," said Turkey.

"This is a stealth mission! Your cigarettes are giving away your position! Who's smoking?"

All four soldiers raised their hands.

"Swinger, are those your cigarettes?" asked the Commander.

"Sir," Swinger said, "the pack I had was about to go stale, and-"

"Why did the rest of you decide to join her?"

"Sir, just so you know, I don't really smoke," said Caw-Caw, "but her codename is Swinger, so I figured if I got on her good side then maybe she would let me sleep with-"

Harsh alien speech echoed across the forest, and the XCOM squad hunkered down.

"Sir, there are multiple alien contacts up ahead and moving toward us," said Swinger.

Scales breathed into his microphone. "They've spotted us, sir!"

The Commander ordered everyone to take cover and find a line of sight on the enemy group ahead.

"Turkey!" The Commander said. "There's a robotic Assault MEC patrolling with those Sectoids. Hack it and shut it down before it blows up half the squad!"

Turkey opened her laptop and tried to wirelessly access the Assault MEC's mainframe. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, but she threw up her hands after her monitor displayed FAILURE in bold red letters.

"I failed, sir!" she said, "I think it was because I was cutting my fingernails earlier and one of my loose nails got stuck under the keyboard and I couldn't get it out so I left it there and now I couldn't push the L key all the way down so I just-"

An explosion swallowed Turkey whole as shrapnel flew across the forest. Dark smoke and heat drifted from the MEC's rocket launcher.

Caw-Caw leaned out from his cover and confirmed the location of a Sectoid target several yards away.

"According to the battle computer," said the Commander, "you have a 90 percent chance of connecting with that Sectoid. Take the shot, Caw-Caw."

Caw Caw lined up his sniper rifle, held his breath, and fired. The Sectoid didn't even flinch as the deafening shot flew deep into the forest.

"I missed, Commander! If you had let me wear hot pants like I asked then it would have been 100 percent, I know it! And no one squawked out my name, that usually helps too!"

The Sectoid saw where Caw Caw was holed up and threw a glowing grenade at him. Green acid exploded across Caw-Caw and ate through his orange armored torso.

The Commander pounded a fist on the Command Desk, but he stayed cool. The fight wasn't over yet. "Swinger! If you move out of cover, then you'll flank the same target with a 95 percent chance to connect. The battle computer almost guarantees it. Go!"

Swinger took a drag from her cigarette and rushed toward the alien. She aimed her shotgun at point-blank range and pulled the trigger. The blast hollowed out a nearby oak tree, but the alien remained standing, unscathed.

"Well, shit, I missed too, Commander. What are the odds of tha-"

Swinger's intended target punched her face first into a boulder. Even though her head cracked apart on the boulder, her cigarette stayed lit and between her lips all the way down.

The Commander held his head in his hands, unable to compose a single thought now that most of his soldiers had been dispatched.

Out of the silence, Scales crackled over the comm system. "Commander! I've got an idea. They'll never see it coming. But my codename won't be Scales anymore."

Scales removed all of his armor, revealing a pale naked body painted bright green at the extremities. "Call me Streak, Commander!"

Scales Streak ran through the woods in the buff, firing his assault rifle and hollering a vicious war cry. "I'm blending in with my environment, Commander!" he cried.

Grossly offended by human nudity, a Viper slithered between the trees and coiled around Streak before the he ever had a chance to react. The man-sized snake shoved its tongue down Streak's throat and bit the soldier's head off of his shoulders. The Viper then picked Streak's pockets and took his foot locker keys.

The Commander laughed at the ceiling and clapped his hands. "Good try, everyone! This is what XCOM gets for failing to recruit decent or even mediocre talent. If everyone in the fortress could please put on swim trunks, the aliens are probably going to put us in suspended animation and liquefy us by the end of the day. I want to see everyone wearing something comfortable on our way to assimilation. Let's move!"


End file.
